This is class war, and we can’t afford to lose

Last Wednesday saw the biggest act of civil unrest this country has seen in a generation. More than 2 million public sector workers abandoned their posts and marched off to the picket line, a number of our own academic staff among them. Most of you will have noticed the general atmosphere of approval around campus. Not surprising considering polls show that 80% of 18-24 year olds were in favour of the strikes, along with two thirds of the rest of the population. Equally unsurprising is the fact that such large approval ratings fail to be reflected in the media.

Not the respectable publications that you and I read, of course. But the nefarious rags of the kind disposed to the assorted acts of malpractice which have recently got Hugh Grant’s knickers in a twist. People involved with the strikes have been labelled everything from ‘reckless and selfish’ to ‘antediluvian monster’. (Me neither. I Googled it and I assure you, it’s a pejorative).

Do the labels ‘reckless and selfish’ or ‘hard-left bullies’ accurately describe any of the academics you may know who were involved in the strikes? Do they accurately describe the members of the National Association of Head Teachers? Or the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) which represents some of the highest ranking civil servants?

No. The fact is that the merry-go-round of ministers, media moguls and financial services magnates spins on, and once the layers of rhetoric are peeled away from the vitriolic commentary, the subtext is always the same: ‘We know you are unhappy. But you are stupid. We are clever and we know what’s best for you. So just go home, draw the curtains and put Jeremy Kyle on. It’s all under control.’ Bullshit! It doesn’t take much more than a passing grasp of economics to understand that the policies which have driven people on to the streets by their millions have absolutely nothing to do with deficit reduction and everything to do with ideology.

The audacity of it all is mind bending. The strikes and the accompanying disdain which they drew came in the same week that the Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) announced that Britain will be entering a double dip recession in the next six months and that unemployment is set to continue rising. The same week that Osbourne’s own Office of Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) slashed its growth forecast for the fourth consecutive time. Doing maths gives me heartburn, but even I understand that unemployment and economic growth are not traditionally best friends and that continued attacks on peoples’ spending power are doing irreparable damage.

The truth is that this raid on public sector pensions is a direct attack on the public sector itself. Tory ideology states that the public sector is a drain on the private sector, and that if the private sector is nurtured then market forces will create jobs and wealth for all, thus negating the need for any of those silly public services that the proles are so fond of, ones like the NHS, or schools. We can only speculate as to how many generations of inbreeding it takes to make this simple logic sound appealing.

The mechanics of the downfall of this ethos were set in motion by the belief that people are stupid – that we don’t know what’s best for us and must trust the shiny people in the telehole who will guide us, in their infinite wisdom, to a better future for everyone. That’s erroneous on all counts. If you have even a twinge of doubt about the competence or intentions of these people then you are not a ‘lefty’, or an ‘idealist’, or a ‘Guardian reader’, all terms loaded with connotations meant to marginalise you. You are simply capable of feeling empathy for your fellow creatures and one who wants to find fair and practical solutions to the problems we currently face.

The public sector attack is a battle on just one front of a class war. Expenses scandals, banking scandals and media scandals have all weakened the armour of the enemy and our generation now has a golden opportunity to slay the beast of the 1%. Or at least teach it a jolly good lesson. It is a war in which there will be many casualties, but we must pitch our tents and push on. The consequences of defeat do not bear thinking about.